'Look here, young feller,' he said, 'if you tell me lies down you go,
understand? D'ye believe me?' he asked with sudden ferocity.
'Yes,' whispered Dick.
'Well then listen, an' answer quick an' lively. Where's the bag of gold
you stole outer that big tree beyond the Bed Hand?'
Dick's heart jumped like a startled hare. He recognised his enemy now in
spite of his cap and his disguised voice. It was Joe Rogers.
'D'ye deny takin' it?' asked the man sharply.
'Yes,' said Dick, cold at heart and quaking in every limb.
'Damn you for a young liar! Fer two pins I'd send you straight to smash.
I know you've got that gold stowed somewhere. Where?'
The boy gave him no answer, and Rogers sprang to his feet, and tickled
him again with the knife.
'You whelp!' he said hoarsely. 'I'd think ez much of slaughterin' you ez
I would of brainin' a cat. Speak, if you want to live! Where's that
gold?'
Dick was convinced that the man would be as good as his word, but he
still lingered, casting about helplessly for an excuse, a hope of escape.
'Blast you, won't you speak?'
Dick felt the knife cut into the rope above his head, and shrieked aloud
in a paroxysm of terror.
'Stop, stop! I'll tell!'
'Tell then, an' be quick. That's one strand o' the rope gone; there's two
more. Speak!' He raised the knife threateningly.
'It's under that big flat stone near the spring in the Gaol Quarry.
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